Emmanuel was born in Bogota, Colombia, where he attended the French school and went to France to begin his higher education at Sciences Po Paris. He obtained his undergraduate diploma in Latin American studies and Political Science and then went to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to study at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in the frame of a one-year exchange program. Then, he interned for two months at the Colombian Ministry of Culture.

In 2006, he began his Master’s degree in Communications at Sciences Po and decided to take a gap year to gain working experience. He lived in New Delhi for 8 months, interning at Digital Empowerment Foundation, an Indian NGO working with issues related to ICT’s (Information and Communication Technologies) for development. He worked analizing the impact of the Internet and mobile telephony in the upliftment of rural areas in South Asia. He is now living in New York, where he is doing an internship at the Social Science Research Council, in the Media and Democracy Program.